“Eve Arnold. Tutto sulle donne – All about women”

May 18 - December 8

Whether it’s the African-American women of the Harlem ghetto, the iconic Marylin Monroe, MarleneDietrich or the women in Afghanistan of 1969, little changes. The intensity and expressive power of Eve Arnold’s shots always reach extraordinary levels. The American photographer has always put her feminine sensibility at the service of a job that has long been closed to women and to which she has been able to give a very personal added value.

To this intense interpreter of the art of photography, the House-Museum Villa Bassi, in the heart of Abano Terme, dedicates an extensive retrospective, entirely centered on his famous and original female portraits. The retrospective presented in Villa Bassi by the Municipality of Abano Terme and Suasez, curated by Marco Minuz, is the first Italian retrospective on this theme dedicated to the great American photographer.

Eve Arnold works with and for the movie stars, but she also dedicates herself to travel reportages: in many countries of the Middle and Far East including Afghanistan, China and Mongolia.

Between 1969 and 1971 she realized the project “Behind the Veil“, which also became a documentary, testimony to the condition of women in the Middle East.

“Paradoxically, I think that the photographer should be an amateur in his heart, someone who loves the trade. He must have a healthy constitution, a strong stomach, a distinct will, ready reflexes and a sense of adventure. And be ready to take risks.” That’s how Eve Arnold defines the figure of the photographer.

Although her work bears witness to a struggle to escape the limiting definition of a “woman photographer”, her fortune was precisely that of being able to interpret femininity as a “woman among women”.